O vivens sol,
Porta nos in humeris tuis.
O living sun,
Carry us on Your shoulders.
—and a trickle of blood forms in the corner of his mouth.
I back out of the cell and run from the infirmary as fast as I can, into the clean air of the night, as the heavens open again and begin to pour. I scramble to and fro, not knowing where to go, then race through the rain toward the chapel.
* * *
—
The new roof is finally on the chapel of Saint Eustace, protecting it from the elements, so the builders can live in here instead of the shed. I thrust the door open, breathless and soaked, my legs getting weak under me. The linen veil drips on my shoulders. My arms hang heavy, and I weep with a groaning from someplace inside of me that I can’t name, dark violets and blues oozing like thick dough around me.
The builders are lying on pallets on the chancel, surrounding a fire built on the bare earth. Mason springs up and hurries to me.
“Come here,” he says, surprised. He gathers me to his chest. “Are you all right?”
“I had to get away from there. Whatever that is, I don’t want to be anywhere near it.”
“Edie, what happened?” Mason leads me to a bed of unbound straw at the foot of the chancel. He puts a dry blanket over my shoulders and unpins my wet veil. I breathe and calm and sob again, and he holds me.
“Brother Timothy’s dying,” I finally manage. “He can barely speak. He’s spitting blood.”
“That’s the end of it,” says Mason. “That’s how they all died. Once you see that blood, it’s over.”
“What is this, Mason? It’s not like any other fever…it’s different from sweating sickness or the flux.”
“I don’t know, but after Gilbert died, I couldn’t help thinking—it’s stupid…but what if it’s punishment? What if we’ve made God angry?”
“But why would he punish Brother Timothy? A monk in a priory?”
His look is incredulous. “Not everyone here’s a saint, Edyth. You know that better than anyone.”
My tears stop—I think I know what he’s getting at. “Are you saying you think we’ve made God angry?”
He gets up and paces, trying to formulate words for thoughts he’s probably never had.
“I mean, I don’t usually think about these things, God and rules and such—that stuff’s for old people, or nuns. But it’s not like you’re supposed to sneak around with a girl who lives in a convent…Maybe?”
It’s a good question: what the rules are, when one of you is a vagabond and the other’s bound to a life she hasn’t made a promise to. Should you run from the rules if it’d save your life?
But that moment in the cloister with the Pri and the Anti-Pri returns to me, the comet streaking across my mind, trailing the prioress’s words: Every generation has a defining moment, a crisis of decision. I wipe my face with the blanket, and the next words out of my mouth are the last ones I thought I’d ever say:
“Then you should leave, Mason. You should get out of this place before it gets worse.”
“Leave?” he protests. “What about you?”
“I have to stay here. I have something I need to do.”
“What do you need to do?”
“I don’t know exactly what it is yet,” I say. “But I will. It’s not about me now.”
He stares at the ground. “Forget what I said then—whether or not we’re being punished, this chapel won’t build itself. I need the full pay to get me through the winter, until I can find my next gig. And I’m not going anywhere without you, Edyth.”
“But what if I could do something to stop it? Remember those towns each of us passed on the way here, the ones where everyone was dead? What if it was this same fever—what if we’re next? Mason, if—” The words catch in my throat. “If we live, we can find each other. After.”
Mason looks at me intently for a moment, then hunches over and methodically lays a handful of straw pieces in perfectly straight lines. At last he gets up and fetches an extra tunic, folds it and pats it like a pillow for me to lie down on. He pulls the cloak over me. It’s a long time before he speaks again.
“Well, for now, I’m here,” he says. “I have a job, and you have a place to lay your head. And whatever this sickness is, we’re going to stare it back down to the pit of hell together.”
— 27 —
Somehow I will myself to wake before dawn and leave the chapel to avoid suspicion. Cautiously I sweep over to the infirmary to check on Brother Timothy, and Bridgit’s there, sitting vigil for her old friend. The hectic buzz from last night seems to have worn off a little, and Joan and Alice muddle through their exhaustion to find a treatment that will work.
“Alice,” says Joan, “write this down: Applied leeches for suspected profusion of blood. No improvement. Fever pestilential, not relieved by vinegar and rosewater. Will lance tumors to relieve phlegm.”
Alice opens her wax tablet and takes notes in shorthand, but Joan is dictating faster than Alice can write. She spots me by the door, and my presence seems to give her an idea.
“Brother Timothy told you his herbal compendium was almost finished, right, Edyth?” Alice asks.
I nod. “Yes, it’s still on his desk. I saw all the folios there last night.”
“I think I remember something in there about treating pustules. May I go up to the scriptorium?”
“Fine,” says Joan, taking out her lance and a bowl, “but hurry. He is declining.”
“Sister Joan,” I address the physician, “I don’t know much about planets and stars and such, but did Prioress Margaret happen to tell you about the comet?”
“What comet?” She’s instantly attentive. “Was there a comet?”
“Yes, the night the father and son arrived. I saw it, and so did she, and the sub-prioress, too.”
“Tell me about it, Edyth—the size, shape, everything.”
I get the painting from Brother Timothy’s bedside table and show her. Joan is transfixed as I describe the fireball, its fragmentation—and I even tell her about the colors that came with it.
“I see” is all she says in response. She makes a note in her tablet, folds her hands and leans toward me. “You know what this means, don’t you?”